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Tuesday, January 5, 2016

Soccer highlights domestic drivers in Saudi-Iranian dispute

Saudi Arabia and Iran, highlighting the domestic drivers of
mounting tension that threatens to deepen and complicate sectarian and multiple
other regional conflicts, have taken their fierce tit-for-tat battle from the
realm of traditional diplomacy to the world of public diplomacy.

Following a dizzying sequence of events, including the Saudi
execution of Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr together with 46 others, the storming
of the Saudi embassy in Tehran and the breaking off by the kingdom of
diplomatic and commercial relations with Iran, Saudi Arabia and Iran have expanded
their fight to the soccer pitch.

Several Saudi clubs, including Al-Ahli FC, Al-Hilal FC,
Al-Ittihad FC and Al-Nasr FC, issued statements on their websites in the wake
of the ransacking of the embassy demanding that they play Asian championship
matches against Iranian squads scheduled for February in neutral venues.

The clubs were expected to ask the Saudi Arabian Football
Federation to officially request the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) to move
the games away from Iran.

Soccer pitches have long been flashpoints in relations
between Saudi Arabia and Iran on which not only tensions between the two
countries but also domestic issues related to their strained relations manifest
themselves.

Pitches have also served as barometers and early warning
signs of mounting tensions between the kingdom and the Islamic republic, which
by its very nature challenges the ruling Al Saud family because it constitutes
an alternative form of Islamic government that despite being a theocracy also
recognizes some degree of popular sovereignty.

Iranian officials saw Saudi Arabia’s hand last April in clashes
between soccer fans and security forces in the Iranian city of Ahvaz, home to
Iran's Arab minority and the capital of oil-rich but impoverished Khuzestan
province. Ethnic Arabs have long complained that the government has failed to
reinvest profits to raise the region's standards of living.

The Iranian assertions were fuelled by Arab pundits who called
for the liberation of the five million Arabs in Khuzestan. Some pundits
described the Iranian province as Arabistan.

The Saudi soccer clubs’ demand for moving matches away from
Iranian venues in effect amounts to support for the government’s escalating
confrontation with the Islamic republic. That comes hardly as a surprise with two
of the four Saudi clubs that put forward the demand being headed by members of
the kingdom’s ruling family.

Prince Faisal Bin Turki Bin Nasser, a son-in-law of the late
Saudi Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz Al Saud presides over Al-Nasr while Al-Hilal
is managed by Prince Nawaf Bin Sa'ad. The presidents of Al-Ittihad and Al-Ahli
have close ties to the ruling family.

Mehdi Taj, the head of Iran’s Premier League, said in
response to the clubs’ statements that it would file a complaint with the AFC
on the grounds that the kingdom was mixing sports and politics.

“Articles 3 and 4 of AFC assert that political issues should
not be extended to football; this is not for the first time that Saudis take
pretexts of this sort on their unethical pursuits… The best response is to play
strong football on the field and to defeat Saudis on their own ground,” Mr. Taj
said suggesting that in contrast to the Saudis Iranian teams were willing to
play matches in the kingdom.

Mr. Taj’s willingness despite the crisis was matched by
Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Jubair’s statement that Saudi Arabia would continue
to accept Iranian pilgrims to Mecca even though the kingdom was severing
diplomatic and commercial ties and banning all flights and travel to the
Islamic republic.

The Saudi extension of its conflict with Iran to the soccer
pitch, Mr. Taj’s comments notwithstanding, demonstrated that soccer and
politics are inextricably intertwined. Mr. Taj’s argument was effectively countered
last month when the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), the country’s
broadcast authority, banned an appearance by Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed
Javad Zarif on a popular soccer television program.

In fact, the ban like this weekend’s assault on the Saudi
embassy in Tehran and the kingdom’s consular office in the eastern city of Mashhad
as well as the execution of Mr. Al-Nimr were all reflections of domestic power
struggles and jockeying for position in both Iran and Saudi Arabia.

Conservative Iranian websites called this weekend for
protests at the Saudi embassy in Tehran in a bid to embarrass reformist
President Hassan Rouhani in advance of next month’s elections for parliament
and the Assembly of Experts that elects Iran’s spiritual leaders. “God willing
very soon we will have a picture like this next to the White House. We will hit
Haifa with missiles,” said one protester who posted a picture of the ransacked
embassy on Telegram, a social media website.

Moreover, efforts to control soccer by hardliners with the
Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) in the lead underline the importance
of the pitch as a battleground in the struggle for Iran’s future in the wake of
the nuclear agreement with the international community and the expected lifting
of stringent United Nations sanctions that Western nations hope will boost Mr.
Rouhani in the elections.

Similarly, many analysts believe the timing of the execution
of Mr. Al-Nimr and the others was designed to whip up nationalist fervour at a
time that the kingdom faces multiple problems. These include a protracted war
in Yemen; Iranian nuclear success and its participation in Syrian peace talks;
Saudi Arabia’s stalled efforts to forge a Sunni military alliance that would
target the Islamic State and potentially Iran; and forced economic belt
tightening as a result of reduced oil revenues that threatens to undermine the
social contract that underwrites the Al Saud’s rule.

Whatever the case may be, the executions, including that of
Mr. Al-Nimr, were intended to demonstrate that the Al Sauds will not brook any
dissent. It was certainly the message the kingdom, which accuses Iran of
instigating unrest in Arab countries, wanted to send to Tehran. It is a message
Saudi soccer clubs appear more than willing to support.

James M.
Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies,
co-director of the University of Wuerzburg’s Institute for Fan Culture, a
syndicated columnist, and the author of The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer blog and a forthcoming book with
the same title.

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About Me

James M DorseyWelcome to The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer by James M. Dorsey, a senior fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies. Soccer in the Middle East and North Africa is played as much on as off the pitch. Stadiums are a symbol of the battle for political freedom; economic opportunity; ethnic, religious and national identity; and gender rights. Alongside the mosque, the stadium was until the Arab revolt erupted in late 2010 the only alternative public space for venting pent-up anger and frustration. It was the training ground in countries like Egypt and Tunisia where militant fans prepared for a day in which their organization and street battle experience would serve them in the showdown with autocratic rulers. Soccer has its own unique thrill – a high-stakes game of cat and mouse between militants and security forces and a struggle for a trophy grander than the FIFA World Cup: the future of a region. This blog explores the role of soccer at a time of transition from autocratic rule to a more open society. It also features James’s daily political comment on the region’s developments. Contact: incoherentblog@gmail.comView my complete profile